Category: Cycle-centric ideas

Bright ideas about cycling

End of Tour: Reflections on Cycling in Europe

So, two months after I actually returned home, we come to the end of the belated reports on my 3-month study tour of Europe. I finished with a couple of days in Frankfurt, Germany, before flying out, and I’ve …

Vauban and Rieselfeld, Freiburg: Suburbs for Cycling

During my time in Freiburg, Germany, I paid a visit to two outlying suburbs that have become poster-children for sustainable development. Vauban and Rieselfeld lie to the south and west of central Freiburg respectively, with about 6-7000 people in …

Freiburg – Cycling and Sustainability

We’ve seen a lot of examples of cities around Europe that are doing great things for cycling. But our local readers might say “You’ve shown us big cities (e.g. Munich, Vienna, London), small cities (e.g. Enschede, …

Spark Bikes bikeshare now in central Christchurch

Christchurch now has another piece in the puzzle for a cycle-friendly city, with the launch of the “Spark Bikes” public bikeshare scheme in central Christchurch last Friday. As mentioned previously, five stations have been set up across the central …

Cycling in Zürich: An uphill challenge

After my time in Munich, I spent a brief few days in the Swiss city of Zürich, a city of about 400,000 people (although there are about 1.5 million in the greater urban area). Unlike the afore-mentioned German …

Unterhaching, Munich: Cycling and good planning

While I was in Munich for a week, I made a visit to one of the outlying suburbs of Unterhaching. Technically it is a self-contained town just 10 km away from central Munich (about 20 minutes by train); what …

Cycling in Nantes and #VeloCity2015 Conference

After the highs of a month in the Netherlands, I still had another month to check out some of the “lesser lights” of European cycling (which, compared with New Zealand, invariably still means better than most of us…). …

What can Christchurch learn from The Netherlands?

Having had a month ranging far and wide around The Netherlands (and a month since to reflect), I think I’m starting to see some common trends emerging in terms of what makes the Dutch get on their bikes so much …

Bus-Bike Road User Workshop – Wed 8th July

We’ve mentioned in the past the great initiatives by CAN, the Cycling Advocates Network, to run “Road User Workshops” around the country targeted at bus and truck safety with cycling. Coming up soon is a new Workshop here in Christchurch …

Groningen and Zwolle – the best for cycling?

My final visits in The Netherlands were to two more northerly cities. Groningen (pop. 200,000) is often considered by many to be the best cycling city in The Netherlands with over half of all vehicle journeys made by bike (unfortunately …

Münster – Germany does Cycling too

While I was in the Netherlands I was based very close to the border with Germany. So it was an easy train ride to hop over one day and visit the German city of Münster, just 60km away. Why Münster? …

Cycling in Houten – a triumph in Planning

When providing for cycling, it’s easy to get hung up on the various design details in how to build best-practice cycling routes. As I showed you in my previous post about Utrecht, the Dutch certainly have many very good …

Reflections on a Month in the UK

My time in the UK during my sabbatical has now come to an end and I’ve moved on to the Netherlands (more on that in the future!). I’ve provided a few thoughts and photos on London and Bristol specifically …

Cycling in Bristol

Well after spending three weeks in Bristol, UK, my time is nearly up. I came to spend time with some colleagues who also do quite a lot of work on sustainable transport issues like cycling, so it’s not surprising that …

Guest Post: Feeling the Love

Here’s another guest post from regular contributor Robert…

As a student in the 1970’s I attended a course at a centralised Technical Institute located in the Hutt Valley along with participants from throughout the country.  Inevitably amongst classmates and friends, …